Constitutional Convention Statistics

By the Numbers

Percentage of total wealth owned by top 1% of colonial households in 1774: 16.5% Percentage of total wealth owned by top 10%: 59%4

Number of delegates appointed to the Constitutional Convention: 74 Number of delegates who actually attended sessions at some point: 55 Number of delegates who signed the Constitution: 395

Total population of the United States, as recorded by the first national Census in 1790: 3.8 million people Slave population of the United States in 1790: 700,000 Proportion of total national population that was enslaved: 18% Proportion of population of South Carolina that was enslaved: 43% Proportion of population of Maryland that was enslaved: 32% Proportion of population of North Carolina that was enslaved: 26% Proportion of population of Virginia that was enslaved: 39% Slave population of Virginia (the country's largest slaveholding state): 300,00067

Urban population of the United States, as recorded by the Census of 1790: 201,655 Rural population of the United States in 1790: 3,727,559 Minimum population required for a town or city to be classified as "urban" by the Census Bureau in 1790: 2,500 Ratio of rural to urban populations of the United States in 1790: about 19 to 1

Percentage of the white American population in 1790 that was of English nationality: 60.9% Percentage that was of Scottish nationality: 8.3% Percentage that was of Irish nationality: 9.7% Percentage that was of German nationality: 8.7% Percentage that was of Dutch nationality: 3.4% Percentage that was of French nationality: 1.7% Percentage that was of Swedish nationality: 0.7%8